The City would like to inform residents that as a result of the recent wild fire, the Helderberg Nature Reserve will remain closed for the next month, to provide the Biodiversity team with an opportunity to assess the damage and determine which reinstatement measures are required.

The Helderberg fire damaged the reserve early Saturday morning, 11 June 2022 and was contained Sunday morning, 12 June 2022. The City’s Fire Rescue Services; Biodiversity Management staff and Volunteer Wildfire Services continued with the mopping up operations throughout Sunday until significant amounts of rain started falling in the reserve during the early hours of Monday morning.

Approximately 280 hectares of the reserve has been burnt, however, ecologically, the fire has not had a negative impact as much of the veld was mature and due for a managed ecological burn.

The City’s Biodiversity Management team is currently assessing the damage to the reserve infrastructure, but can confirm that various benches, water bars on the trails and a portion of the boardwalk around the duck pond was destroyed by the fire.

‘I would like to thank the City of Cape Town teams and all our partners for being on the front line with managing this wildfire and for the seamless operational planning and teamwork displayed throughout our response. Over the next few weeks, the reserve staff will attend to urgent erosion work and will focus on making the infrastructure, such as the fences and picnic area, safe for public use.

‘While wildfires are unplanned, they do provide the opportunity to achieve several interventions after the fire. One can remove old infrastructure such as internal fences, and potentially remove, dumping and other foreign material. As in the case of the Helderberg reserve, the fire is also a great catalyst for speeding up planned ecological restoration activities. Alien plants in the area can also be controlled now as they germinate after the fire and the team can look at introducing locally indigenous species in degraded areas,’ said the City’s Deputy Mayor and Mayoral Committee Member for Spatial Planning and Environment, Alderman Eddie Andrews

The fire is a critical ecological driving force and good for conserving fynbos biodiversity in the long-term as the fynbos vegetation requires fire to regenerate from underground storage organs and seeds. For fynbos on the Cape Peninsula, an average fire return interval of 15 years is ideal (however eight to 30 years is also fine).

‘Most of the vegetation in the area of this fire was already 13 years old, therefore good seed banks are in place for germinating this winter. We therefore look forward to spectacular bulb displays in the reserve this spring,’ said Alderman Andrews.

Fauna are also adapted to fire. The more mobile animals such as antelope and most birds are able to flee the fire front. Rodents, reptiles and many other small mammals take refuge in burrows or rocky refugia and thus avoid the fire. After the fire, remarkably few dead animals are found, but unfortunately some do die, such as some of the tortoises that didn’t manage to find a spot to avoid the fire. However the buried tortoise eggs survive.

The impacts on fauna are more severe in areas that are infested with alien vegetation, as animals are unable to find safe refuge because these infested areas can burn up to 10 times hotter. The urban edge and fencing can also be significant barriers to animal movement, preventing many animals from being able to flee.

The City will provide residents with further updates pertaining to the reopening of the reserve closer to the time.

Source: City Of Cape Town